MSNBC

The name you have known for thirty years is going away. In August 2025, the cable channel launched in 1996 as a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC announced it would rebrand as MS NOW — short for “My Source for News, Opinion and the World” — as Comcast spins its cable networks into a new company called Versant (CNN (via Style Magazine)). After nearly three decades of shared branding, MSNBC is splitting from NBC News and setting out on its own — a corporate divorce meant to end the identity confusion that had been building since the Bush years (CNN (via Style Magazine)).

But the history underneath the rename is worth keeping. MSNBC began on July 15, 1996, as an experiment: Microsoft’s internet ambitions fused with a television network’s news pedigree, encompassing both the cable channel and the web portal MSNBC.com (GeekWire). The “MS” is a relic of that partnership — and, in a neat twist, it survives the 2025 rebrand even as the “NBC” is dropped, given new meaning in the MS NOW acronym (GeekWire).

The Microsoft years, and the long exit

Microsoft cut its ties in stages. In 2005 it reduced its stake in the cable channel to 18 percent, and two years later NBC acquired the remaining shares, ending Microsoft’s ownership of the channel entirely (GeekWire). The online side lingered longer — MSNBC.com, later NBCNews.com, kept a newsroom in the Seattle region for a while even after Microsoft divested from the web venture in 2012 (GeekWire).

Despite the split, the “MS” in MSNBC lingered for decades as a reminder of the 1996 partnership — and the network’s leadership leaned into that continuity when announcing the new name. “While our name will be changing, who we are and what we do will not,” president Rebecca Kutler wrote in an internal memo: “Our commitment to our work and our audiences will not waver from what the brand promise has been for three decades” (CNN (via Style Magazine)).

The Tucker Carlson chapter (2005–2008)

One of the least-remembered episodes in MSNBC’s history involves the man who would become Fox News’s biggest star. Tucker Carlson’s early-evening show Tucker premiered on MSNBC in June 2005, after Carlson moved to the channel at the invitation of then-MSNBC president Rick Kaplan (Reuters (Hollywood Reporter)).

The show never found its footing. In March 2008, MSNBC canceled it outright, with Reuters reporting that “Tucker never really found its footing in the ratings, either in late primetime or early evening” (Reuters (Hollywood Reporter)). The cancellation was announced that month; Carlson stayed on briefly as the network’s senior campaign correspondent for the 2008 election. His 6 p.m. slot went to NBC News chief White House correspondent David Gregory and a new campaign-focused hour, Race for the White House, while the network also shuffled primetime — adding repeat runs of Countdown with Keith Olbermann and rebranding Dan Abrams’s 9 p.m. show as Verdict with Dan Abrams (Reuters (Hollywood Reporter)).

The timing is telling. Carlson’s exit came as the network was committing to a new direction, and within a year of his departure, MSNBC was beating CNN in primetime (TheWrap).

The left-leaning turn and the CNN ratings wars

The late 2000s marked MSNBC’s transformation from a rolling-news also-ran into the liberal counterweight to Fox News. Primetime filled with opinion hosts — Keith Olbermann’s Countdown, Hardball with Chris Matthews, The Ed Show with Ed Schultz, and The Rachel Maddow Show — and the ratings followed (Adweek). In March 2009, MSNBC passed CNN in weekday primetime viewership for the first time ever: 1.14 million viewers to CNN’s 1.11 million, with the inroads “spearheaded by its two left-leaning hosts, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow” (TheWrap).

Then came 2010, the network’s best year to that point. MSNBC topped CNN in primetime total viewers for a full year for the first time ever — pushing CNN to third place in cable news — and did it for the second year running in the advertiser-coveted 25–54 demographic (Adweek). The numbers were modest by later cable standards — 764,000 total primetime viewers, 250,000 in the demo — but the direction was unmistakable. Countdown with Keith Olbermann was the network’s top show of 2010, The Rachel Maddow Show ranked just behind it, The Ed Show delivered MSNBC’s best 6 p.m. performance in the network’s 14-year history, and even Morning Joe posted its best 6–9 a.m. delivery while finishing third against the competition (Adweek).

The rebrand and the split

The rebrand is the end of a slow drift. As the channel’s primetime hosts moved left during the Bush and Obama years while NBC News stayed in the proverbial middle, the shared branding caused “internal headaches” for decades, CNN reported (CNN (via Style Magazine)). During the Trump years the gap widened further: MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow said the country had “a consolidating dictatorship,” which, as Stelter noted, “is certainly not how NBC News anchors describe the Trump administration” (CNN (via Style Magazine)).

The split is part of Comcast’s $7 billion restructuring of its cable assets into Versant, the new umbrella for the former NBCUniversal cable networks, with the separation meant to give the channel a distinct identity (GeekWire). When the spinoff was first announced, executives signaled that MSNBC would keep its name — but “during this time of transition, NBCUniversal decided that our brand requires a new, separate identity,” Kutler wrote, calling the decision a chance to “set our own course and assert our independence as we continue to build our own modern newsgathering operation” (CNN (via Style Magazine)).

The channel has been hiring aggressively to staff that operation, scooping up dozens of journalists for a new newsroom that will compete with NBC News itself (CNN (via Style Magazine)). NBCUniversal, meanwhile, is keeping the NBC broadcast network and the iconic peacock symbol; CNBC will keep its name (it originally stood for Consumer News and Business Channel) while shedding the peacock from its logo (CNN (via Style Magazine)).

What this profile does not claim

• The completed status of the MS NOW rebrand. CNN’s August 2025 reporting said the channel would become MS NOW “later this year”; no source read in full confirms whether the switch had taken effect by the profile date.
• The exact rebrand date. A November 15, 2025 effective date appears on Wikipedia only.
• Microsoft’s original investment. Figures of $220–221 million appear on Wikipedia only.
• Ratings beyond 2010. The profile’s ratings claims stop with the Adweek 2010 year-end figures.
• Current programming. The profile does not claim a current lineup or current president beyond the 2025 rebrand reporting.